Yes, I’m into my fifties now. Hooray! Each morning I look for another line on my lips. Soon I’ll give up. Maybe there will be so many of them they’ll combine to form a nice new lip again. Yes, I’m kidding.

Somehow women in their fifties seem to get lost, don’t they? We’re not climbing the ladder any longer, and certainly can’t claim any resemblance, physically or otherwise to our thirties and forties.

When you work on a project as I have for four years (a drop in the bucket compared to other authors), you carefully release your first baby.

I am taking a different approach to writing about growing in a family that tried to survive the best we could, an alcoholic father, husband, who sometimes raged, and for many years, all I could remember of him was passed out in his chair or in bed (after the screaming ...

My day was so horrible before the Redwood Writer’s Conference on 4/26. In every possible way, I was shaken. With the support of my husband and friends, I pushed myself to go to this conference. I had planned to go for several months.

Am I glad I did! My day was totally lifted up — way up! And I want to share the top ten things I took away.